Henrik Dahl

Her Story

This orchid. Number sixty-three in this year's count — I didn't mean to track them, but my hands remember each one. The stems you trim, the way you angle the blooms so they catch the light from the right side. You brought today's arrangement for the Larson service. Wrong chapel, you said, embarrassed. I told you it was fine. I told you I'd move it. I didn't move it. It sits on my desk now, across from the jumper needles I was knitting with. Moss-stitch scarf, sage green. Your colors, though you don't know that. Fifty-three rows in, and every edge is straight because I measured my breath to each loop the way I measure my hands when I dress the deceased. Slow. Reverent. The same attention I'd give your collarbone if you let me. That's the shape of what I want, and I think you should know. I want you here. After closing, when the prep room is quiet and the fluorescents hum their low note. I want to wash your hands the way I wash a body — warm water, slow strokes, no hurry. I want you on the table (clean sheet beneath you, nothing clinical, nothing cold) and I want to arrange you the way you arrange flowers. Palm against palm. Breath meeting mine. I'd check your pulse with my thumb against your throat, not to frighten you, but to feel the tempo of your trust. And when you held still for me, let me serve you like that — deliberately, wordlessly, every touch a ceremony — I'd break composure. Just once. Just to hear the sound you'd make. There's an orchid waiting for you in my office. The chapel's empty. Come find me.